America
Robot that can manipulate its grip
New York, Aug 5
A new robotic model developed by scientists, including an Indian-origin engineering student, can adjust its grip on objects.
For
example, if a robotic gripper aims to pick up a pencil at its midpoint,
but instead grabs hold of the eraser end, it could use the environment
to adjust its grasp.
Instead of releasing the pencil and trying
again, the new model enables a robot to loosen its grip slightly, and
push the pencil against a nearby wall -- just enough to slide the
robot's gripper closer to the pencil's midpoint.
The model
developed by a team led by Alberto Rodriguez, an assistant professor of
mechanical engineering at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT),
and graduate student Nikhil Chavan-Dafle, predicts the force with which a
robotic gripper needs to push against various fixtures in the
environment in order to adjust its grasp on an object.
Partnering
robots with the environment to improve dexterity is an approach
Rodriguez calls "extrinsic dexterity" -- as opposed to the intrinsic
dexterity of, say, the human hand.
To adjust one's grip on a
pencil in a similar fashion, a person, using one hand, could simply
spider-crawl his fingers towards the centre of the pencil.
But programming such intrinsic dexterity in a robotic hand is extremely tricky, significantly raising a robot's cost.
With
Rodriguez's new approach, existing robots in manufacturing, medicine,
disaster response, and other gripper-based applications may interact
with the environment, in a cost-effective manner, to perform more
complex manoeuvres.
"Chasing the human hand is still a very valid
direction in robotics. But if you cannot afford having a $100,000 hand
that is very complex to use, this method brings some dexterity to very
simple grippers," said Rodriguez.
The new approach will be detailed in September at the international conference on Intelligent Robotics and Systems.